Letter: Parents should not leave sex education to the school

If a school cannot make or create and manage a school garden, what makes parents think that schools can nurture their children and raise them to be what they want to be in life, says the writer.

If a school cannot make or create and manage a school garden, what makes parents think that schools can nurture their children and raise them to be what they want to be in life, says the writer.

Published Jul 4, 2023

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By Annah Matuka

Teenage pregnancies are upsetting for many reasons. I was reading an article in which someone in the Health Department was blaming the nurses who refused to abort the babies of the pregnant girls.

As usual, South Africa rushes to put a bandage on a boil.

Why are we not educating our children about sex? Why are our children having sex earlier? Are they bored? Do they know the consequences of sex?

Do they have people to guide them when they reach puberty, on the changes that occur in their bodies?

Are they copying their parents who live in a shack where there is hardly any privacy?

What of the boys? Are they being taught about being responsible young men who are useful members of society?

Are the schools teaching kids about sex and the consequences of teenage pregnancy, and the risks of HIV transmission and other sexually transmitted diseases?

Are we really blaming the girls because they are the ones who get pregnant?

Why are we not criminalising having sex with a minor?

All teenage pregnancies are a result of kids indulging in sex early. Who is making them pregnant? Is it boys or men?

What would make a person so sick as to sleep with a child and get her pregnant?

If a school cannot make or create and manage a school garden, what makes parents think that schools can nurture their children and raise them to be what they want to be in life?

A garden, like a child, needs care, love, maintenance, protection and more.

Parents teach your kids about sex, life, money and the world .Let's not leave it to the school, clinic or TV. Sex education is a priority. Criminalise statutory rape.

Cape Times

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